Hi KingsIsle,

Would you mind answering some informal questions please?
I cannot ask on your forums because I am not a subscriber (I think your forums are still restricted?) so thought I would ask here?

Did you plan for crafting, mounts, and housing pre-release?
I ask because I was one of the Beta Testers.  In the Beta none of these things were in game.
Over the past year all these things have been added - and they fit very well into the game.
So, was that good planning?  Good luck?  Or have you been tearing your hair out trying to make these things work?

Did you design the game with the fact that you might add these things (at a later date) in mind?

Genuinely curious because I think this is a great game that works very well.  I really want to know a little more about this and the process behind it.

Also...
How about a bit of info on your next project?
When will we hear more about that?  Can you reveal anything at all?

Thanks.

 

If you haven't already done so, I'd recommend reading the Wizard101 Post-Mortem article from Game Developer magazine.  It's very interesting.  Doesn't provide any real news about their secret, in-development title, though.

~Ripper

Gyrus, thank you for your interest and your questions! We did indeed have a roadmap planed post launch which included the two world expansions (Dragonspyre and Grizzleheim), housing, crafting, and mounts. We have a number more to which I’m not yet at liberty to speak

While we had the roadmap planned we did do some tweaking post launch. Part of this comes from our goal of really working hard to interact with and listen to our community. One notable change was with the creation of Grizzleheim, our sixth world. It was originally planned to be a world post Dragonspyre and include a level cap increase. However, we decided that it had a much greater value to our community by being a parallel world that added content to players across multiple levels.

As to your last question, no info yet

Originally posted by KingsIsle

Gyrus, thank you for your interest and your questions! We did indeed have a roadmap planed post launch which included the two world expansions (Dragonspyre and Grizzleheim), housing, crafting, and mounts. We have a number more to which I’m not yet at liberty to speak

...

Thanks for your answer.

It makes sense that you had it planned out - just because of the way it all fits together so well - it really is very nice to see a Development and Design team with actual foresight! 

I remain impressed with your Company and game simply because of your whole approach (which shows through in the final game).

Don't suppose you could visit a few other Dev companies and give them some advice?! ;-D

I do remember some mention of other schools of magic too - so I assume that is still on the cards (heh!) and I will be very interested to see how this is integrated into the game with the other schools.

Also interested to hear about Grizzleheim... IIRC there was another world mentioned in a game text during beta too... something about history of the spiral mission in Marleybone.
I would support not constantly raising level cap too.  If you can find alternate solutions that would be far more entertaining.

Anyway, thank you for taking the time to answer.

Originally posted by rhinok

If you haven't already done so, I'd recommend reading the Wizard101 Post-Mortem article from Game Developer magazine.  It's very interesting.  Doesn't provide any real news about their secret, in-development title, though.

~Ripper

Thank you for that link.  Still reading through it but a couple of things made me chuckle.

This struck me:
"5) Poor Player Growth Strategy. This
was a rookie mistake, and we should have
known better. MMOs grow over time, and have
a lifespan of five to ten years. A smart designer
would plan for plenty of room to grow the game
and grow the characters along with it. We, however,
chose to box ourselves in and make it difficult.
The first basic problem is that we chose to
use a percent scale for many of our equipment
and advancement modifiers. ...
Here’s an example: players use power points
(pips) to cast spells in combat, and more powerful
spells require more pips. Players gain a pip at the
beginning of each turn in combat. As players earn
power and equipment, they gain the chance to
get a double pip. Here’s the sad part—the double
pip chance is on a scale of 1–100 percent, and we
launched the game with players able to achieve
near 90 percent. Given that 100 percent is the max,
we have very little room to make more powerful
equipment or grow the player beyond what they
could achieve when we launched."

Yes... but the game currently only has two types of 'pip'.
Regular Pips and Power Pips (= 2x Regular Pips)
So, the solution seems obvious to me...
Mega Pips (= 3x Regular Pips)
Of course... you only get access to these when your chance of getting Power Pips is 100% and at that level you really are using the most powerful spells all the time in the most powerful world(s).
(If that sounds like a good idea to you KingsIsle... I can PM you my bank account details? ;-) )

This too:
Now that we’re well past launch and it’s
quickly becoming time to increase the power
scale, we’re faced with some difficult challenges.
The prospect of building and testing a new
equipment and character development scheme is
daunting, not to mention re-balancing thousands
of pieces of gear. The anticipated community
response alone is enough to make me cringe.
OMG!  Nerf Bat!

Oh, and your data expert deserves a pay rise.

But this is something all Devs should read and read again. 
We learned there is no substitute for good planning, and that
polish happens all the time, not just at the end.

Thanks.